The Particle Shader component is intended to shade particles, such as Splash, Mist and Foam.
It has been optimized to render very fast in comparison to a traditional material shader, while still being capable of achieving a large variety of different effects, such as sparks, embers, sand, or even thin cigarette smoke.
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Typically, the Particle Shader is used to shade particles exported by the Phoenix Simulator. However, it can also shade non-Phoenix particle systems, in order to render particles from 3ds Max’s Particle Flow, tyFlow, and Thinking Particles.
Simply create a Particle Shader node, add a Phoenix particle system by picking the Phoenix Simulator (or any other external particle system that you wish to render), and the Particle Shader will shade it using the cache data from the sim. Since the Particle Shader is a separate node, you can use multiple Particle Shaders with different settings, in order to shade multiple particle systems within the same simulation.
The Particle Shader also provides several different shading modes for more sophisticated control, enabling you to quickly achieve a large variety of different effects for different scenarios. It can draw particles as Points, a variety of different Bubbles, or even voxelize particles into a grid using the Fog mode.
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These Particle Shader modes are designed with specific particle types in mind; for example, the Splashes mode is typically used to shade Splash particles.
However, Phoenix also offers the flexibility to use any mode to shade any secondary particle type, so that you can create fine-tuned appearances for different particle types when rendering.
Note that there are three different bubble-style modes available that are intended for different scenarios: Bubbles, Cellular, and Splashes. When rendering Foam particles, you can use the Particle Shader's Cellular mode to render polyhedron-like cells that look very similar to real foam, making it possible to shade foam that is close-up to the camera, and have it look convincing.
